Wisdom And Age Actually Don't Mix
by Dreaming-Of-A-Nightmare
Summary: Magneto saves the life of a mutant who can send himself or others back through time for a limited amount of time. As a reward, Magneto is sent back to the day Charles loses his legs. .:. post-X3 and part of FC drabble. Cherik, but only spoken about.


**A/N: my Anon who left me the Shaw-is-Charles'-dad prompt on Tumblr left me a new one: "Somehow, Magneto (Old one) goes into the past and meets Charles (Young one) some time before Charles gets paralyzed on the beach."**

**And so I made this weird little oneshot. WTF. This totally didn't turn out how I wanted it, but oh, well, it's done now and I can't think how to change it! So... enjoy?**

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><p>Mutants seems to be capable of any ability these days.<p>

They have a mutant who can turn back time on someone's biological clock, giving them back their youthful appearance inside and out, but, of course, at the cost of their own lives.

They have a mutant who can generate solar energy from kinetic energy with their body, the newer energy outputted by their hands, but with the cost of blinding light and burns for whoever is too close.

And then there is a mutant who can send people through time for short periods, to any time the person thinks of. They can travel together, or be sent, by this mutant.

And it's this last one that Magneto accidentally encounters.

He is young, fit, agile; he is wise for his age, and he is cocky, calling himself a master of time. But Magneto saves his life, and it humbles him, so the mutant asks, "How would you like to go back in time for a day? Tell me the day, month, and year, and I can do it. The place, too. Just tell me, and you'll go there for a full twenty-four hours before popping back to this exact spot again, but about five minutes later, so I remember that you left."

Magneto stares incredulously at the young lad. He seems sincere about this. Genuine. And Magneto is so very tired, and so very old; he can't even bend metal any longer, not really. After a long, strenuous battle… he was injected with a "cure," and now he can scarcely make something wobble under his fingertips.

But he wants to take it. He wants to accept.

So he does. He inhales sharply, and he speaks the day: it's the day of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the day he left and lost so much, and it was the last day Charles has his legs.

He asks to be sent to Charles's address as early as possible in the morning, in hopes of catching the telepath before they leave for the airbase, to travel on the jet and away.

But before he's sent, Magneto has to know, "If I… tell someone anything, will it change the future?"

The twenty-something-year-old mutant boy shakes his head, running a hand through his unruly hair. "Nah, man. It doesn't really work like that. They'll remember you and stuff, but in the end, Fate doesn't get twisted around. Believe me, I've tried; I've tried to make it so my sister didn't get killed in a flash mob against mutants, but she did. I tried so many times in different ways, but all the time, she died differently, somehow. So if you wanna save someone that way, you can't. They'll still wind up however they are sooner or later."

So even if Magneto succeeded in preventing Charles' paraplegia on that day, Charles would _still _wind up in a wheelchair somehow, later on in life. But later is better than sooner. Charles should have his legs for longer than his twenty-seventh year of life.

So Magneto nods firmly, solidifying the deal. "All right. Thank you. Now please, send me there."

The mutant grins, waves his hands in front of him, and just like that, Magneto is rushing backward, forward, up and down, spinning and yet staying still, all at once, movement everywhere. And then, with a wobble and a touch of his hand to his head, he's standing at dawn on Charles' front lawn, half of the things looking the same, but a few things… missing.

It worked.

Slowly, almost timidly, Magneto makes his way up to the front door and knocks. Then, he rings the doorbell.

Charles answers the door, always the first one up, Magneto muses.

"Ah, hello," Charles says, and he is as young and handsome as Magneto remembers, and it makes him feel hideously old, and his mouth dry.

He clears his throat. "Charles, I would like a word with you. If everyone else still asleep?"

The young telepath frowns, blinking, and asks as he opens the door wider and takes a step backward to let Magneto inside, "How do you know my name, stranger?"

Magneto chuckles sadly. He wants to cry, but he somehow keeps it in. "You're a mind-reader, Charles. But if you would like me to explain, I will. I'm allowed in, then?"

"…Yes…" Charles ventures quietly, and he lightly touches the elderly man on the elbow to guide him in, and close the door behind him.

Even aged, Magneto smiles at how he still stands about a head taller than his old friend. He looks down, adverting his gaze from Charles' questioning eyes.

"…Come into the foyer," Charles says, and he gestures a hand in a direction Magneto knows all too well. "Everyone else should be waking soon enough. We have a big day ahead of us."

"I know," the old man remarks softly. He follows Charles into the room, the fireplace already going.

"Would you… like something to drink?" Charles tries cautiously, polite and gentlemanly as always. He's growing ever curious, and is most likely itching to pry Magneto's brain, and Magneto simply smiles again.

"No, thank you. I only want a word with you, my friend," he says. "Please, sit down, and feel free to rummage around in my head all you like. You might not like what you find, and it may be a bit messy, but I'll try to make things clear for you."

"That is very generous of you," Charles says slowly. "Because this is all very strange. So please, give me a moment."

And there it is, Charles' old habit of touching his temple and staring intently at his selected mind-victim, and it makes Magneto's old heart flip. He once again shoves down the urge to shed tears, even a _single_ tear.

Charles' back goes rigid as he sits up fully, his hand dropping to his lap, his mouth hanging open. "You're…"

"Erik, yes," Magneto says quietly, hands folded in his lap. "And I am so, so very sorry, Charles. Please, no matter what happens today, know that. Know how sorry I am."

"You… a mutant who can send others through time?"

"Yes."

"And you took it, to see me."

"Again, yes."

Charles shakes his head, huffing a disbelieving breath. Then, in a low voice, he says, "And you recently watched me die. That girl — she was one of my students?"

"…Yes," Magneto says in the gentlest voice possible.

"And I was — will be — in a wheelchair. Old, bald. As intelligent and powerful as ever, but… so _frail_," Charles says, and he heaves another breath, this one shakier, and he, too, is on the verge of crying. He looks up, directly into Magneto's eyes. "We were — will be — enemies?"

"Amiable enemies," Magneto corrects. "But yes."

Charles drops his face into his hands, those same young hand soon swiping back his hair, and yes, now his eyes are pink and brimmed with tears. "This is so much, so much to take in, to _know _—"

"I'm sorry for that, too. I don't mean to burden you, but you have to understand, Charles, I've always been a brash man, and I know you might hate me for doing this, making you see this, but —"

"I do. Part of me does, Erik. I'm _furious._ How _could_ you? I shouldn't know any of this. I should wipe my own mind, if I only could. This future, _our_future —" He cuts himself off with a jagged breath. Their eyes reconnect. "But your intentions are well-meant. You came to warn me, and apologize. And for that, I can't be entirely angry with you. That, and… I sense it." His voice is calm, understanding. "You loved me."

Magneto looks away, feeling ashamed of himself. "Then, or for you, now. My younger self is too prideful to admit it, but it's true. And I will most likely spend the rest of my days that way, since I seem to have spent most of them loving you anyhow. So please, Charles, remember that whatever happens between now and the future, know that the me you see is arrogant and selfish, but that he loves you, and he never loves anyone else in the same manner."

Charles nods, and his voice comes out strained as he says, "I will. I promise you that I will remember that, Erik." He pauses. Then: "So you cannot bend metal now?"

"No, I cannot."

"That was quite the vicious war. That's never what I wanted, not for anyone, even my students."

"I know, Charles."

"…Why did it turn out that way?" the young professor croaks, and Magneto grips the fabric over his knees tighter where he sits to withhold the urge to get up and comfort his long, lost friend.

"I ask myself that every day," Magneto confesses gently, "But asking won't bring answers, not for this."

Charles nods. He wipes at his cheeks. "Still, I suppose I should thank you. It's almost cruel, handing me all this from inside your mind, and if you would have told it to me with me _seeing _it, I honestly would have thought you an insane old man and thrown you out. But this… it's real. Those are your _memories. _And I could feel how each one effected you, and… and it_hurts, _Erik. I have never known such pain, not even in your younger self. And you keep it all in, lock it away, use it for vengeance, and pretend you're normal. How do you live like that? It's… well, quite frankly, _heart-wrenching._"

Magneto actually chuckles at this. "Oh, Charles. Don't you dare start worrying about me and how I handle myself. That will lead you nowhere, not even if you try with my younger self. No, it will only bring you down in the end."

"…Is there any way to change all this, or at least some of it, then? Perhaps for a better end?" Charles asks. "I know what the mutant said; I saw it. But I wonder: do you think he could be wrong?"

"No. No, I don't think he could be wrong. A cocky 'master of time' as he may be, he knows what he's doing. I trust what he said is true, even if I would like to disprove it and alter events so that some things never occur," the old mutant replies. He stands. "Anyhow, I must be going, Charles. You do have a life-changing day ahead of you, and I know the others will be waking soon. Take care, my friend. And please learn to forgive me."

He starts to walk away, but Charles follows after him and embraces him from behind in solace. "I will always forgive you, Erik, no matter what age you are or how our paths cross. Know that." And he releases the man. "Goodbye."

…As Magneto walks out of the house, he feels eyes on him. He turns, expecting to see Charles peering out the window, possibly waving even though Charles had walked him to the door, but instead, he sees a different pair of eyes.

He looks up, and there, in the second-story window near the front of the house, he sees himself. A reflection from the past. He is glaring, Erik is, and Magneto simply peers back, and their gaze even through height and glass, is a mingling of opposing forces.

Young Erik opens the window. He shouts, "Who are you?"

And all Magneto says in reply before leaving the premises (amused at his younger self for being oddly protective of the household he barely belongs to), "An old friend of Xavier's."

And, technically, Magneto isn't lying.


End file.
